It also delivered a major plot twist when Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) committed Starfleet's first act of mutiny and saw her mentor Captain Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh) killed at the end of the second episode.

Daring? Yes. A gamble? Certainly – but what inspired such a bold idea? And what's next for Burnham who has yet to board the USS Discovery?

"When Bryan [Fuller] and I started talking early on, we came to the idea that there's something very powerful about setting the audience up to believe they were going to be able to predict what was going to happen and then pull the rug out by the end of the second episode," Kurtzman told Entertainment Weekly.

"So that you're left going, 'I really can't stay ahead of us, this is not what I thought it would be'.

"And we weren't trying to do that as a gimmick, we did it because Burnham is Starfleet's first mutineer, and that's a deeply emotional story. In so many ways, the rug is pulled out from under her as well."

During the interview, Kurtzman also revealed the series has been immaculately planned and that 'there's a grand design to season one'.